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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Orcs Hit Las Vegas: Tournament Game Report 1

This year the West Coast Quake shifted over to Las Vegas.
Last year was the first time I went to the Quake, which was before I started the blog. I took my Gator (Lizardman) team, Cletus' Crudwater Revilers. The last two tournaments I went to I took Goblins & Chaos Pact. Since it'd been more than a year since I'd played a reliable team, and I haven't played orcs since the Living Rule Book just started after 3rd ed. I thought it was time to play Orcs again: probably my favorite of the 'warhammery' races. So the 2nd edition Orc team, now complete and named the Bronze Boars (can find them in earlier updates this month) made their way to Las Vegas. I traveled there with my friend Dan who was bringing his High Elves.

First, big thanks to Dennis and Mike for all the work before and days-of to make this possible. WCQ is known for an abundance of goodies, this year was resin tokens & Zelvis. I got mine the day of, but rather than use an unpainted mini I was using Orcvis of course.

With 20 coaches or more, the pairings for the first game was random, with the exception that the two who played for first place last year were given random opponents first, so there'd be no chance they'd play each other first round. Both these guys are powerhouse players. The winner of last year, who won with Orcs, and was playing Orcs this time was drawn a random opponent first. Yeah, it was me. Haha, awesome. The master of orcs and I play him having not played orcs in about a decade. Well, everyone says orcs are good and play themselves right? Well, I figured worst-case I'd get a good look at how someone plays them who really knows their stuff. And best case, if I take him down, just more bragging rights! ;)

Game 1: Bronze Boars vrs Wild Bones (Orc)

Pregame: We tied for Fame, he won the toss and elected to receive. There are no weather conditions in the tournament.

His Orcs were a bit different than mine. He did take a troll, which I appreciated. He agreed, trolls are fun and in the spirit of Orcs. He had a 4th Black Orc. He also had no thrower, instead having 2 lineorcs, one with wrestle and two goblins. He had only 2 rerolls to my 3. I'd made a change to my list since last posting it. I decided to lose Leader for Guard on a 2nd Blitzer. Though I missed the reroll, I am sure I got more use out of Guard. The suggestion to take Accurate would have only helped once (I was watching) and I doubt it would have made much difference. More on that in future games.

I tried to put pressure on him, but he really knew how to get the most from his orcs and he scored on Turn 4.

This is when I realize my first big mistake. It turns out 'Zelvis' is a 'secret weapon'. That wasn't in the version of his rules I'd seen, so my belief that I had a 12 man team wasn't quite right. So my Orcvis was kicked off the field. Not so good.

He kicks to me, I drove through and set up for my pass. He gets to my thrower, The Seeker, (yeah, he's looking for some skill) and in a couple turns pinned Pinball Wizard the Blitzer and pushed him off the field, knocking him out! I was planning to score with him. Turn 7 he injures the Black Orc Rorcer Daltry. Last chance: The Ox (troll) goes stupid, freeing his wrestler.. I try to get to him to tie him back up with a goblin, must go for it:

1, Reroll: 1. Story of my life.

Goblin knocks himself out too. The wrestler gets to my thrower and brings him down. Half ends 0-1.

2nd Half: He kicks. My K.O.'d players come back, but I'm down 1 player since I have an injured Black Orc (one with Block). A few actions in I need to block with the troll: both down. Too important, try a reroll but loner says no.

The Ox takes a nap.

I had driven a blitzer deep down field, but as you can see from above, my thrower had been in a bad spot! My thrower was stunned after that, it was up to the goblin, Boris da Spider!

Boris dodges, dodges again, picks up the ball at -1, dodges out, throws with his stunty arms at a -2... it's accurate! Blitzer sees the ball coming toward him... lets it drop and bounce at his feet. Argh! After all that?

That was my chance to tie it up.

He then sends in his troll to guard the fallen ball.

He sends in more, Blitzes my Blitzer with one of his, but mine injures him! Fun, but it's only a stone from the mountain.

My kingdom for Big Hand.

I have a Blitzer waiting in the score zone just in case, but it's too late. The game has degenerated into a full-on Orcish brawl. Well, this always happens when you get too many orcs in one place.

I tried one last ditch effort of Baba O'Riled Up dodging into 2 tackle zones to get the ball, but you can guess how well that worked out ;)

The game ended in a Loss for me 0-1.

All things considered I wasn't too unhappy with that. It was a very close game, and might have been a tie if the blitzer had just caught the ball that amazing goblin worked so hard to pull off. And considering who I was playing against I was happy I'd kept the game so close.

Dan and I decided to keep track of our teams as if it was a league: which players got SPP & MVP, roll for skills and note any players who would have died. Pete Townrender the Black Orc got the MVP but no skills were gained. Just for fun, not that such skills would actually be gained or applied in the tournament, it was just for dorky fun to see how the team could have advanced.

With the name Baba O'Riled Up, I expected you to have Baba O'Riley by The Who up. I'm with Styx, buy an Elvis wig and wear it, or at least take a pic of yourself in it and tell us you wore it. Good luck, rollin' dem bones.

I tried to change the blog so I could reply under each comment- seems the design is there but the reply button doesn't do anything. I'm not the best with web pages, so don't know why it didn't work. Annoying. Others seem to be able to do it fine, but I can't make it work (or get the follow widget to function again either) anyway...

Styx: all the games are played & set in stone, but so many pictures & stories to tell i decided better to put each game as a separate update. We'll see soon if your prediction for game 2 is right ;)

Coach: Yeah, accurate would have only come into play once. Turns out my thrower was so bad that not even accurate would have helped ;) maybe if I'd played skaven or other team that scores more often I might have had more use for it.

Tough game! Passing game is always tough with Orcs. I try to never trust my thrower with anything but picking up the ball. Sure Hands is worth buying the Thrower on it's own IMO, but I always then try to hand off to a blitzer in a cage so if he drops it, there's a good possibility someone else in the cage catches it without burning a reroll.

I haven't played Bloodbowl in years, it still gets my vote as best GW game. I have no idea what the current rules are. I may try to organize a local league, there are some players in Metro Vancouver but I never had a car and they played far far from me... Gotta host if possible...